1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lift truck and, more particularly, to a hand-operated lift truck of the type having a fork which is lifted by a hydraulic mechanism.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A prior art lift truck of the type described includes a chassis with wheels, a hydraulic cylinder mounted on the chassis, a fork movable up and down driven by the cylinder, and a pump unit mounted on the rear end of the chassis with respect to the longitudinal direction of the truck. Adapted to supply the cylinder with working fluid under pressure, the pump unit consists of a plunger pump and a pumping handle which is movable about a pivot to drive the plunger pump. The fork is elevated to a desired level by tilting and untilting the pumping handle generally in the longitudinal direction of the lift truck. A problem with such a construction is that the pumping handle cannot be moved back and forth in that particular direction unless a sufficient space is available behind the lift truck, i.e., one cannot manipulate the handle backing on a wall and others.
Further, both of the rear wheels of the prior art lift truck are implemented with casters which are freely turnable to change their orientation. To reorient the lift truck, a handle which is independent of the pumping handle and fixed to the chassis is gripped to twist the whole lift truck. Such, however, requires effortful handling, especially when the fork is loaded with heavy articles.
Meanwhile, there have been proposed a lift truck in which a plunger pump is selectively driven by a pumping handle and a foot-operated pedal in order to solve the space requirement problem as discussed above, and a lift truck in which an extra handle for steering is associated with rear wheels to facilitate steering operations. However, these schemes known in the art are disproportionately complicated in construction and expensive.